SEQUIM — In hopes of adding a vertical platform lift, or VPL, to the Dungeness Schoolhouse, a team of volunteers has begun a Kickstarter campaign to raise $60,000.
Judy Reandeau Stipe, volunteer director of the Museum & Arts Center, said in a news release that the VPL will bring the schoolhouse into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and make the upstairs auditorium accessible to everyone.
To see a video and find out how to contribute, visit www.Kickstarter.com and enter “Dungeness Schoolhouse” into the “Search Projects” box.
MAC volunteers began their campaign last Tuesday and have until Feb. 25 to raise the $60,000.
As of Wednesday, $70 had been pledged.
Kickstarter’s all-or-nothing campaigns must reach their funding goals — or collect no money from the contributors.
Volunteer and actress Becky Horst came up with the Kickstarter idea for the 122-year-old schoolhouse, Stipe said.
The building, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, lacks any kind of reliable lift.
There is an old chairlift that goes up and down the staircase, but it’s been known to break down.
So Readers Theatre Plus, the community troupe that has staged many shows in the building’s upstairs auditorium, has gone on hiatus awaiting installation of a VPL.
Other local groups, however, continue to rent the schoolhouse at 2781 Towne Road for concerts and classes.
The $60,000 will cover the VPL project, Stipe said, including the architect, permits, concrete base and apparatus.
“This addition is desperately needed in our retirement community,” she said, adding that during an event last weekend, six people needed a ride upstairs to the auditorium.
The VPL will be enclosed in a shaft located between the fire escape and a ramp on the north side of the schoolhouse.
The finished siding will be the same as the Victorian-style exterior, Stipe said.
More than $6,000 has been raised already toward installation of a VPL, she noted.
Some of the funds were raised during a variety show presented last November by volunteer Shelley Taylor and a flock of actors, singers and other entertainers from Readers Theatre Plus.
For more information, phone the MAC office at 360-683-8110 or email SequimMuseum@Olypen.com.